spice

Lip Vibration Assessment of Hot Pepper Sensation [research study]

July 1, 2022 Marc Abrahams

The mystery of spice-induced lip tingling succumbed, partially, to investigation in the year 2013. Details are in this study: “Food Vibrations: Asian Spice Sets Lips Trembling,” Nobuhiro Hagura, Harry Barber, and Patrick Haggard, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, vol. 280, no. 1770, 2013: 20131680. The authors, at University College London, report: Szechuan […]

Ig Nobel winner’s big new pepper

January 19, 2011 Marc Abrahams

Ig Nobel Prize winner Paul Bosland has bred yet another surprising jalapeno pepper. Professor Bosland, director of The Chile Pepper Institute, New Mexico State University, was awarded the 1999 Ig Nobel Biology Prize for breeding a spiceless jalapeno chile pepper. The newly announced pepper (which is not spiceless) is meant to have an impressively large […]